This is a perfect gift for a young person reaching the age of maturity and beginning their life and career - but it's also a great read for those of us who have lived a little longer.

It's a book about historical figures and what they were doing at the age of 18. Some were achieving great things, others were finding their way preparing for their life's work, others were facing severe challenges. It's a brilliant concept!

Historian Alice Loxton (who is only 28 herself) has produced a marvellously instructive and inspiring introduction to lives of significant individuals through generations. 

She tells of young men and women who made their name as explorers, actors, writers and musicians, designers, scientists. People in royalty, some born without arms or legs, those whose lives were interrupted by war and tragedy.

Taking us from the Venerable Bede to Vivienne Westwood, each chapter introduces us to a new character, some familiar like CS Lewis, Chaucer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Nelson, Richard Burton, some less so. We find out about their childhood, what is known about their eighteenth year and what they go on to achieve and become known for. 

The chapters are lively in their descriptions, making the time and the individual relevant and appealing to a modern reader and between each mini biography there is a short description of a party - what would it be like if theses people came together to eat and celebrate? (I didn't like this much but it did provide a good punctuation point between the chapters, allowing us to pause before diving into the next amazing life story.)

There are 18 chapters - of course. And the last story is about Rae DeDarre. Never heard of them? Not surprising, because this is the author's letter to 'Dear Reader'.

She sums up the lessons we'e learnt throughout the book and reminds the reader that though 'the lives of people in the past seem exciting and glamorous and shocking and so hard to imagine. Yet those people lived and breathed and gossiped and laughed and sneezed in just the same way as we do today. And what's more, they probably found their lives mundane or ordinary, too.' So what will future historians say about you? A fabulous book.